


The Necessity Of Loving

by Anonymous



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: (but not in the first chapter), Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Anidala, Domestic, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Getting a Dog, Grief, Happy Ending, Healing, Humour?, Love, Marriage, Miscarriage, Pets, Pregnancy, Relationship(s), Romance, baby loss, beagles, reconnecting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-25
Updated: 2021-02-25
Packaged: 2021-03-16 16:34:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29703420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Anakin and Padmé happen upon a dog not long after experiencing a heart-wrenching loss.
Relationships: Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker
Kudos: 7
Collections: Anonymous





	The Necessity Of Loving

**Author's Note:**

> The first chapter recounts (though not in graphic detail) a second-trimester fetal loss. 
> 
> That isn't _really_ what the story is about, though.

_Wow— I'm sorry, Anakin. Is your wife okay?_

_Send Padmé my condolences. My sister went through the same thing._

_You guys can always try again!_

Anakin grunted, and sat up straight. He'd been laying on the couch in the living room, trying to watch TV. Padmé was in the kitchen, cleaning up after a dinner the two of them had barely touched. He'd offered to help her, but she'd insisted on doing it by herself. That was why he was alone on the sofa, doing his best to ignore the futile platitudes running ceaselessly through his mind.

They'd come from co-workers, acquaintances, friends, and even a few virtual strangers. None of them was very helpful, because none of them made him feel any better. Nothing anybody said could take away his wife's grief, and none of it could take away his, either.

...Actually, almost no one except for Padmé herself had even so much as acknowledged that Anakin might be feeling their loss as acutely as she was. Like her, though, Anakin was devastated... whether anybody else was able to wrap their minds around it or not.

He wished he'd been allowed to help with the dishes.

_What do you mean there's nothing you can do?_

_Are you sure she has to have surgery?_

_I love you, Padmé. **I'm sorry.**_

His own voice started to drown out those of the people he knew, and if he hadn't known better than to disrespect Padmé's thinly-veiled request for space, he'd have hopped to his feet right then. He'd have gone into the kitchen against her wishes just to shut his own brain up, because he knew it was about to start _remembering_ again.

Before he could stop himself, he'd travelled back in time— there he was in bed with Padmé the night before the surgery. She'd been sitting quietly, just reading. He had been sitting quietly, too, but unlike her, he hadn't been doing anything at all.

 _Sometimes these things happen,_ she'd told him, obviously trying very hard to sound more brave than she felt.

 _They shouldn't,_ he'd said back. _It isn't fair— we had everything ready, and we did everything right. This shouldn't be— I mean, you don't deserve—_

_Nobody 'deserves' something like this, Ani... but the fact that nobody deserves it can't stop it from happening._

They'd reclined in bed together after that, Padmé having put her book away. Anakin had curled up behind his wife, kissing the back of her head as he let his hand rest on the small bump which had once denoted their impending parenthood. The baby inside had already died by then, leaving only a melancholy reminder of what could have been.

The doctors never even figured out why it had happened.

Once again before he could stop it, Anakin's brain made another leap. This time it took him back to the hospital, where Padmé had gone in the first place when the baby stopped fluttering about inside of her. It was the same place she'd gone the following week, husband in tow, to have the fetal remains extracted. She would have been twenty-three weeks along.

Padmé hadn't photographed her belly in the bathroom mirror that week.

Despite being frightened, initially, at the thought of Padmé having to have surgery, part of him— a very private part— was now glad that she had. He knew very well what a twenty-week-old fetus looked like, and he had no desire to perform a meet-and–greet with his own dead one. He hadn't wanted to wrap it up in a blanket, or try to maneuver a tiny hat onto its head for the purpose of what he would have considered a macabre photoshoot.

Maybe that helped some people, he thought, but he knew himself well enough to know that it wouldn't have helped him.

She'd been asleep for the ordeal, which meant that Anakin hadn't been allowed in the room anyway. He had been by her side as she'd woken up, though, at which point she'd finally cried. Padmé wasn't one to cry, typically, but if there'd ever been a time to do it, that day in the hospital would have been it.

They'd been released before dinner time that evening, the doctors having assured Padmé that she was healthy, and that nothing she'd done had caused her baby to die.

Anakin was relieved to hear that his wife was alright, but since a reason for what had happened couldn't seem to be found, his inclination toward blaming himself for it was very strong. Stronger than he was, at least for right now.

Finally, he heaved himself up from his spot on the sofa, and stood on his feet. He'd left Padmé alone long enough, hadn't he? He wanted to go and see her more than almost anything, but he also didn't want to upset her. Padmé seemed to be coping with this differently from Anakin— while he wanted to reach out (if only to her), she seemed more comfortable wrapped up inside herself.

Anakin respected that, of course, but he also needed his wife.

Even before this had happened, Anakin had _always_ needed his wife.

"Padmé," he said, stepping into the kitchen. He had expected to see her stacking freshly-dried dishes, or scraping their uneaten food into a pile to be composted, but she wasn't doing either of those things.

Instead, she was standing stalk-still at the sink, leaning against the counter. The sink was still full of dishes, but that wasn't what concerned Anakin.

"Are you alright?" he asked her. "I just thought I would—"

"I'm fine, Ani," she told him impassively, without looking up.

"Do you think you might want to let me help you with—"

"No."

"...Okay."

Anakin would normally have kissed his wife, or otherwise reached out to offer her some affection after seeing her so despondent. Right then, though, it felt as though a cavernous distance had opened up between them.

Their kitchen might as well have been ten miles wide, for how far away he felt from her in that moment.

That feeling— and their mutual silence— persisted until they joined one another in bed that night, said their 'I love you's, and fell into two separate (somewhat restless) states of unconsciousness.

... ... ...

"Ani!" Padmé shouted, from the other side of the house.

"What? Did you find something?"

It was cold outside, and Anakin wanted to go in: He and Padmé had been skulking around their own yard for several minutes now. She had woken Anakin in bed not long after they'd gone to sleep, insisting that she'd heard something. She hadn't been able to describe the sound when Anakin had asked her to; all she'd said was that it sounded like something was moving around at the side of the house.

Reluctantly, Anakin had tossed on his jacket over the t-shirt and boxers he'd worn to bed, and gone along with her to investigate... and until now, they hadn't found a thing.

He walked around their home to where it seemed as though his wife's voice was coming from. She didn't sound distressed or frightened, or else he might have been worried. In truth, he thought this was pointless, and had begun to feel fed-up.

"We both have work in the morning," he continued as he approached. "If I don't get some more sleep, I— wait, what the hell is _that?"_

"What does it _look_ like?" Padmé asked, kneeling down on the ground with her hand on the fuzzy back of a small, round-looking little black-and-tan creature. She was closer to smiling than she'd been in weeks, which Anakin might have noticed if it hadn't been for his irritation.

"It... well, it looks like a dog." He knelt down as well, and immediately added, "It _smells_ like a dog, too. Ugh."

"Quiet, Ani," she scolded gently. "You'll hurt its feelings."

She turned her attention to the little beagle in the grass. It seemed relatively healthy, if not confused. Its tiny white paws were caked in dirt, as if it had been outside for longer than it should have been, and it looked a bit dehydrated. Besides that, though, it was in fairly good condition.

"I doubt it knows what I'm saying," said Anakin dismissively as he stood. "What are we going to do about it?"

"Well, I think we should take it inside. Clean it up, give it something to eat, and maybe let it get some rest." She gave the dog a pat on the head then, and asked it as if she were asking a human being, "How long have you been out here, anyway?"

That sounded reasonable to Anakin. He could call the animal shelter in the morning, and they could do whatever it was shelters did to try and get the thing back to wherever it belonged. Anakin was a compassionate man, but he already felt terribly out-of-sorts, and the last thing he needed was a beagle nipping at his feet— and eating his food and using his bath, and— seemingly— stealing his wife's attention from him, too.

_Don't be jealous of a dog, you idiot. It's just for one night. Maybe cleaning it up and feeding it will make her feel better for a little while._

Maybe.

"Alright," he said, as his brain's chiding pulled him out of himself and back into the yard. "Take it inside, and—"

He cut himself off then, because it turned out that Padmé was already on her way to the front door. Apparently, she was having no problem coaxing the nervous little creature along. He looked up just in time to see the snow-white end of its tail disappear around the side of the house.

He sighed and followed along, wondering if he might manage to catch a few hours' sleep before he had to start getting ready for another day at work.


End file.
